peeker643 wrote:"'Sup, dude?""Nothing, bro. Call ya back in an hour when GoT is over?""Cool"<click>

or

"Hello""Busy working or can ya talk?""No...I have a minute..""Just checking to see if ya grabbed he tent from Christina for the grad party?""Getting it tonight on the way home.""Excellent...thanks. Have a good afternoon.""You too. Love you.""Love you too."<click>

I can see the anger flickering in the NSA opeartive's eyes and audits being scheduled, lives headed down the path to destruction.

Don't you dare blame me when this happens.

"All Beckett needs to do to cap off this mess is order some fried chicken and beer" – 5/10/12 before Beckett got chased in the 3rd at Fenway.

By the way, sir. I stumbled into a kegerator for a good price from a friend of mine.

I almost fell over when I saw half kef of Yeungling is $118.

Any thoughts on better deals or values ?

1/4 kegs are only about $20-25 less than 1/2 kegs so that doesn't make sense either.

Low on home brews til we finish what we started so looking for decent option for this Saturday when my daughter has her high school graduation party. And no, kids/students aren't getting served at the party.

mattvan1 wrote:Please tell me that you can see the difference between using electronic surveillence on a person of interest who has been profiled and meets a certain criteria and simply grabbing cell phone traffic for 5,000,000 Verizon subscribers.

BTW, these folks doubt that a "novell intelligence from massive data" program can be successful in stopping terrorist plots.

Of course I can. Please tell me you don't believe that Big Brother recorded and listened to the calls of 5,000,000 verizon subscribers.

If you believe the ACLU (which I don't necessarily - just throwing it out there) the NSA "intercepts and stores" 1.7 billion phone calls, texts, and emails every day. Do I think they listened to them? No. But I do believe they are routed to some huge database farm somewhere.

gotribe31 wrote:I have lots of thoughts on the matter. But none of them can really be shared in this forum. Wish I could, believe me. There are plenty of pros and cons that are worth discussing.

All I'll say is this; you hear 1000% more about intel failures than successes. And the details of successful operations are almost never fully revealed, for the simple reason that doing so would reduce the chance for further successes. And there are a couple of articles I've seen that have talked about specific instance where this program was used.

As US president James Madison noted in the Federalist Papers, there is an eternal tension between protecting the public from itself (not to mention from other countries' publics) and from the government itself. No gimmicky marketing claim about "a new social contract" that is neither new, nor a contract, can overcome that tension. We can never solve what in law enforcement circles is called "the Dirty Harry problem" of means and ends. However, society is best served by awareness of the problems and filtering the issues through principles of legality, public accountability, proportionality, and context and consequence sensitivity that this book expresses so well.

jerryroche wrote:Snowden is a patriot of the highest order. Who was it that said "Give me liberty or give me death?" Patrick Henry?Yes, Snowden's also a criminal and must be punished as such. But that's the sacrifice he decided to make for his country.

I'm 30 and agree with your POV but this highlighted part is bullshit. Its no different than the attempted prosecution of Deric Lostutter (the member of Anonymous who exposed the Steubenville rape files). The guy stood up for whats right when the fucking law didn't. The concept of punishing someone who did the right thing, at least in these cases, is ridiculous. A bit hyperbole here, but there are Good Samaritan laws for a reason.

The bigger issue is intent. The NSA and FBI in all these cases are trying to push the intent angle which is patently absurd IE Snowden/Manning/Lostutter carried out their crimes with purpose of aiding the enemy or harming national security. These guys didn't leak information for person gain or to aid the enemy - they blew the whistle when they had reason to believe the government was basically stomping on the 4th amendment. The content of that material classified or not, especially in the Snowden case, is secondary to the lack of checks and balances represented by multiple layers of the government basically encouraging the lack of proper search and seizure of citizens who aren't suspects of a crime.

This. 100 times.

Manning, Lostutter, and Snowden are the good guys.

Still waiting on that pile of US corpses that was supposed to follow the apocalyptic Wikileaks....

But hey, they're criminals for informing us of what our government is doing ILLEGALLY.

gotribe31 wrote:I have lots of thoughts on the matter. But none of them can really be shared in this forum. Wish I could, believe me. There are plenty of pros and cons that are worth discussing.

All I'll say is this; you hear 1000% more about intel failures than successes. And the details of successful operations are almost never fully revealed, for the simple reason that doing so would reduce the chance for further successes. And there are a couple of articles I've seen that have talked about specific instance where this program was used.

Ah, C'mon Matty Toes*, don't be like that. I know you love the FBI as much as Mike Holmgren's process!

I know I seem like I'm on one side of this here, but the truth is I haven't decided exactly what I think yet. The thought of it definitely makes me a little queasy, I'm just not sure how big of a deal I think it is. And the media isn't much help here to tell the truth. For them it's either the worst thing that ever happened or perfectly fine. But it's really in some big grey area. I haven't decided what shade just yet.

*One of my favorite guys ever was named Matt. We sometimes called him Matty Toes for reasons I never understood. But I wouldn't mind having a Matty Toes back in my life occasionally. Hope you don't mind.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.[1]

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.[1]

They need a warrant... or it's illegal.

Here's the part where I need to read into it further before commenting

This article gives a decent amount of background and the government's interpretation of why it, for now, does not break the 4th amendment. Apparently, the fact it was implemented under the guise of intercepting "foreign" communications makes it a grey area. Very good read.

So let's say that there was some nasty shit going on in Benghazi, for the sake of argument.

And, for the sake of argument, let's say David Petraeus was sick of giving cover. What would stop someone from snooping through his traffic to build a case against his personal mis-deeds? As a matter of fact by outing him could you not being firing a warning shot to anyone else who might be disagreeing with stated policy.

Obviously there is nothing solid on Benghazi, and I think a part of the Petraeus case included legit FBI warrants on Broadwell where he was including his IP in the headers inadvertently. I am not sure but I am assuming was Prism used to gather that data?

dmiles wrote:So let's say that there was some nasty shit going on in Benghazi, for the sake of argument.

And, for the sake of argument, let's say David Petraeus was sick of giving cover. What would stop someone from snooping through his traffic to build a case against his personal mis-deeds? As a matter of fact by outing him could you not being firing a warning shot to anyone else who might be disagreeing with stated policy.

Nothing. But Petraeus would be able to speak and theoretically the truth comes out and the extortionists are made an example of.

motherscratcher wrote:I think this is a bit of strawman argument. Basically you've given me a choice between Big Brother 1984 Government and "Illusion of safety" as if those are the only two outcomes. How do you know that safety is simply an illusion. How do you know that the government, in the form of teh NSA, FBI, SS CIA etc. haven't thwarted a bunch of attacks or threats using some of the very information that everyone seems so loath to give up?

I don't know. Maybe a lot. Maybe none. But I'm not going to pretend that I do know.

I'm willing to listen to Al's thoughts on the matter.

The purpose of my question there was not on what has happened but what doors does it open in the future? If we concede that the grounds the government has set are tolerable, whats to say it doesn't allow this practice to funnel down to the state/local level? If we are going down the slippery slope of pissing on the 4th amendment at the federal level, do we as citizens even get a say if the federal government mandates that state governments can use these practices for local crimes? That's bullshit. You think local authorities should have that type of power/jurisdiction? My point is the constitution even at its age (and is a bit outdated in some regards) is still the best tangible thing we have to keep the government from infringing on its citizens. Again, I don't give a fuck if I or anyone else has nothing to hide - my problem is the concept of the government abusing its power by circumventing people's rights due to the ridiculous ambiguity set forth in the Patriot Act.

Don't disagree with that at all RNE. And I purposely have tried to stay away from the "nothing to hide" argument, because like you've alluded to, it's completely beside the point.

Reading your post here, it seems to me that the fault ultimately lies with the elected assholes that we've sent to Washington to represent our choices on matters like this. And if we don't like what they are doing we should send different assholes. The problem is that every time we send a different asshole he/she seems to be worse than the asshole they replaced.

It's a shitshow and I don't have an answer.

Late to the party, and I'm sure I'll have a few more thoughts as I finish the thread, but the text I bolded brings up something that sticks in my craw. The entire reason we have a Constitution is so it doesn't matter if we have the right guys, the wrong guys, or nothing but clones of Adolf Hitler in all elected parts of the federal government. The powers they have are bounded by the Constitution (in theory), and so even if we the people elect the worst people possible to represent us they still can't take away our freedoms. I'm really bothered by the political extremists on both sides (not here, but between sites like FreeRepublic and DailyKos) who think these powers are just fine as long as we have a guy from the right political party in charge. That's no way to run the land of the free and the home of the brave.

gotribe31 wrote:I have lots of thoughts on the matter. But none of them can really be shared in this forum. Wish I could, believe me. There are plenty of pros and cons that are worth discussing.

All I'll say is this; you hear 1000% more about intel failures than successes. And the details of successful operations are almost never fully revealed, for the simple reason that doing so would reduce the chance for further successes. And there are a couple of articles I've seen that have talked about specific instance where this program was used.

Ah, C'mon Matty Toes*, don't be like that. I know you love the FBI as much as Mike Holmgren's process!

I know I seem like I'm on one side of this here, but the truth is I haven't decided exactly what I think yet. The thought of it definitely makes me a little queasy, I'm just not sure how big of a deal I think it is. And the media isn't much help here to tell the truth. For them it's either the worst thing that ever happened or perfectly fine. But it's really in some big grey area. I haven't decided what shade just yet.

*One of my favorite guys ever was named Matt. We sometimes called him Matty Toes for reasons I never understood. But I wouldn't mind having a Matty Toes back in my life occasionally. Hope you don't mind.

I'm the Dude. So that's what you call me. You know, that or, uh, His Dudeness, or uh, Duder, or El Duderino if you're not into the whole brevity thing. But if you need me to be Matty Toes, I guess why the fuck not?

I don't need to be patient, they're going to be shit forever. - CDT, discussing my favorite NFL team

All right, it turns out that there was pretty much nothing but well-reasoned commentary through the rest of the thread. If anyone has a few minutes to spend on reading something I thing is a great take (and of course, on my side of the discussion), I'd recommend checking out http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2 ... _secr.html

peeker643 wrote:Well, as a tax-paying individual I have a feeling that the government already knows afair bit about me.They know my race, age, sex, marital status, my kids and their ages, the value of my home, where it is, what I drive, how much I make, where I travel, what I buy, how much of it I buy, what weapons I've purchased and about a billion other things that I do. And they knew this prior to the NSA's efforts (or in part due to the NSA's prior efforts).I'm also not naive enough to believe that when my email gets hacked and my entire address book gets Viagara ads emailed to them that the internet is "safe" from those with an interest in making it less so.Now, I may be naive, but this just isn't a huge deal to me. I guess you can politicize it as you care to and I guess you can say it's another example of our right to privacy being further eroded.But if you don't think that ship sailed years ago then I'm not the only one being naive.This isn't a new development. It's just an updated methodology. Go ahead and toss your phones and disconnect your internet. Take your stand. See if things improve. If they do, drop me a letter in the mail so I know. Oh wait.... probably want to avoid the mail too.

To paraphrase - our liberties are being eroded but there's nothing we can do about it

Then fuck it dude, let's go bowling

On a serious note, the government does know a lot about you. But you know they know and there are certain things that cannot, for the most part, be avoided.

What else is there to know? I'm apparently the most boring person alive, because that pretty much cleans my closet.

I would assume that for the last 10-20-50 years ago, we weren't storing massive amounts of data to easily go back and review with a bullshit warrant. Maybe this is just the only logical step given technology advancements I don't know.

Similarly being extorted for extramarital issues is nothing new either, but as a tool or weapon in 2013, I have to say the ability of the government to do this has increased by orders of magnitude.

FUDU wrote:EW are you that afraid of terrorism that you so easily cave and disregard your right to certain privacy?

C'mon, you can't be that much of a rube. Patriot Act was 2001, why are people acting like this is news? As soon a everything went digital and wireless, someone was watching. It's just official now.

Where are all those "freedom isn't free" asshats now? They are right, it isn't free. It's expensive and high-tech and requires some loss of privacy. Of which I'm ok with, as I mostly follow the rules.

I'm not really afraid because I know, particularly after 9/11, that someone is watching. And they should be, because they had no idea, not an inkling, that those planes were set to cash into those buildings.

They won't get them all, but they'll get some. And if my phone calls and emails help, I'll gladly donate them.

Not to mention that if you actually think someone is digging through your phone calls, you're a dumbass. They send them to a server, run them through a computer that searches for key words or phrases, and only look at the ones that get flagged.

I just find that "if you're not doing anything wrong then there's nothing to worry about" perspective lame as hell.

Agreed, but it appears that in this days and age, you and I are dinosaurs on this topic. It saddens me, but this is the world we've come to live in. As someone once said, it's the "pussyfication" of the world. We'll have as much freedom as we're allowed, for our own good.

jfiling wrote: It saddens me, but this is the world we've come to live in. As someone once said, it's the "pussyfication" of the world. We'll have as much freedom as we're allowed, for our own good.

Then leave. Seriously. If it's that much of an issue, find another country. Wait, what's that? It's an inconvenience to move to another country? There's some kind of personal reason you can't leave? It's impractical and ridiculous?

So, just to be clear, you're upset about the level of government control, but only as much as it doesn't cause you to expend any extra resources.

Has your life changed a single iota from the day before the story broke until today? Of course not. Anyone here going off the grid? Moving to Idaho to live in a teepee and hunt and gather their food. Forsake all modern technology and conveniences for sake of maintaining your "god given rights as an American"- which is also hilariously ironic.

EW how do you not see the potential for corruption here? Typically ordinary citizens usually have something they want to hide. What happens when the next NSA vote comes up, and you decide not to toe the line. Someone does a little digging and finds the congressman has a thing for college girls.

I mean I know this stuff has been going on forever, but it was one helluva a lot more difficult and expensive when you had to hire private investigators to get dirt on people. Now you just need a flunkie on the inside who can mine data.

Not really. Just pointing out that you believe you live by your own and/or society's definition of morality, ethics, and adherence to the rule of law. And I'm sure that you do as do most of us.

But it seems lately that the government's definition of what is right and what is wrong is getting very very blurry. I think the NSA thingy, in isolation, was not that big of a deal. But add the DOJ fiasco and the IRS fiasco and I am starting to wonder if we, as citizens, are seeing an ever tighting noose of (attempted) governmental control.

I don't need to be patient, they're going to be shit forever. - CDT, discussing my favorite NFL team

Erie Warrior wrote:The Patriot Act was passed in 2001. This is not news.

And further, unless you are doing illegal things, does it really matter? The banners on this site track my browsing as well.

Exactly. They were tapping phone calls and cell phones and ICQ and websites after 9/11. Whoever gets their panties in a wad about this jackoff just haven't been paying attention...

Emphasis mine

“That they were using this (provision) to do mass collection of data is definitely the biggest surprise,” said Robert Chesney, a top national security lawyer at the University of Texas Law School. “Most people who followed this closely were not aware they were doing this. We’ve gone from producing records for a particular investigation to the production of all records for a massive pre-collection database. It’s incredibly sweeping.”

But in the years since,(2003) the FBI’s use of Section 215 quietly exploded, with virtually no public notice or debate. In 2009, as part of an annual report to Congress, the Justice Department reported there had been 21 applications for business records to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) under Section 215 – all of which were granted, though nine were modified by the court. (The reports do not explain how or why the orders were modified.) In 2010, the number of requests jumped to 205 (all again granted, with 176 modified.) In the latest report filed on April 30, the department reported there had been 212 such requests in 2012 – all approved by the court, but 200 of them modified.

These sharp increase in the use of Section 215 has drawn little attention until now because the number of national security letters (NSLs) issued by the bureau has been so much greater -- 15,229 in 2012. But FBI Director Mueller, in little-noticed written responses to Congress two years ago, explained that the bureau was encountering resistance from telecommunications companies in turning over “electronic communication transaction” records in response to national security letters.

I don't need to be patient, they're going to be shit forever. - CDT, discussing my favorite NFL team

jfiling wrote: It saddens me, but this is the world we've come to live in. As someone once said, it's the "pussyfication" of the world. We'll have as much freedom as we're allowed, for our own good.

Then leave. Seriously. If it's that much of an issue, find another country. Wait, what's that? It's an inconvenience to move to another country? There's some kind of personal reason you can't leave? It's impractical and ridiculous?

So, just to be clear, you're upset about the level of government control, but only as much as it doesn't cause you to expend any extra resources.

Has your life changed a single iota from the day before the story broke until today? Of course not. Anyone here going off the grid? Moving to Idaho to live in a teepee and hunt and gather their food. Forsake all modern technology and conveniences for sake of maintaining your "god given rights as an American"- which is also hilariously ironic.

Didn't think so. That'll be a buck-o-five please.

Those silly bastards that wrote the Declaration of Independence should have felt the same way, obviously. I'm not sure why they thought they had the right to establish a better system than the one that existed in what was clearly the property of King George. They should have properly fucked off to some other place if they wanted to establish such ideals as "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", and I'm pretty sure if they could see the cock-up this country has become they'd wonder how it got fucked up so bad.

History repeats itself, and the Germans have seen this story before. We've been warned...

Even Schmidt, 73, who headed one of the more infamous departments in the infamous Stasi, called himself appalled. The dark side to gathering such a broad, seemingly untargeted, amount of information is obvious, he said.

“It is the height of naivete to think that once collected this information won’t be used,” he said. “This is the nature of secret government organizations. The only way to protect the people’s privacy is not to allow the government to collect their information in the first place.”

I had a fun time last night poking around sites and using the trending Amash hashtag. Anyone who followed the Justin Amash vote was absolutely fucking livid no matter what political affiliation. You couldn't find anyone to defend that crap who wasn't some party higher-up, I've never seen such lock step agreement from right and left on an issue. Problem is nobody knew a damn thing about it. Not even an article today. Would love to see Boner/Paul Ryan/Pelosi/Wasserman-Schulz on Fox debating their vote against Amash.

This shit is so rigged. Two-parties my ass. Every important leader from both parties twisting arms, and all supported it. Bachmann was vomit inducing thank god she is out the door. I thought the coolest one was that with one lone exception every single House Member from the state of Massachusetts voted Yes with Amash/Conyers. Yep Joe Kennedy.

Keep electing congressmen like Amash, and the system won't be rigged for long. The dude is only 33. And there are more like him out there.

I think the fact that this bill even got a vote, and got as close as it did, is proof the system isn't completely rigged. Get more people like Amash in there, and less people like Marcy Kaptur and we might see some real change.

I had a fun time last night poking around sites and using the trending Amash hashtag. Anyone who followed the Justin Amash vote was absolutely fucking livid no matter what political affiliation. You couldn't find anyone to defend that crap who wasn't some party higher-up, I've never seen such lock step agreement from right and left on an issue. Problem is nobody knew a damn thing about it. Not even an article today. Would love to see Boner/Paul Ryan/Pelosi/Wasserman-Schulz on Fox debating their vote against Amash.

This shit is so rigged. Two-parties my ass. Every important leader from both parties twisting arms, and all supported it. Bachmann was vomit inducing thank god she is out the door. I thought the coolest one was that with one lone exception every single House Member from the state of Massachusetts voted Yes with Amash/Conyers. Yep Joe Kennedy.

Commodore Perry wrote:Keep electing congressmen like Amash, and the system won't be rigged for long. The dude is only 33. And there are more like him out there.

I think the fact that this bill even got a vote, and got as close as it did, is proof the system isn't completely rigged. Get more people like Amash in there, and less people like Marcy Kaptur and we might see some real change.

Let's see what happens in 2014.

Commodore I think you might be right. Friday Chris Christie goes all out assault on the "dangerous strain of libertarianism" influencing both parties right now.

Today Peter King out there running his mouth about how Rand Paul would lose like McGovern. As Glen Greenwald tweets today:Someone should tell Peter King: GOP has run 2 consecutive war-is-awesome, anti-civil-liberties hawks-- & got crushed

So, is there some collective pants shitting going on right now in the NeoCon ranks?

On one hand you have Dick Cheney. As many of you can figure out, I never liked Dick Cheney. I think he's as shady as the day is long with connections to the worst of both worlds; big oil and the military industrial complex. He lined his pockets with via his government positions moving back and forth with Haliburton.

OTOH, I always got this sense that he really believed what he believed, unlike 99% of these anchormen politicians posing as leaders. I respected Dick Cheney.

Cheney set up the strategic thinking and infrastructure for the sea change in US security and survelence policies.

In comes Barrack Obama, whom you all now have me convinced is the socialist anti-Christ who would sell out the US for a heard of cattle in Kenya. He's not one of us and clearly is all about wealth distribution to African-Americans and propping up Eric Holder to get future Treyvon Martin relatives reparations. He's hell bent on destroying the United States as you know it and subjegating the white race.

These two men have more or less had the exact same policies and secrets in place.

jb wrote:These two men have more or less had the exact same policies and secrets in place.

Do you ever ask yourself "why"?

Or is it because you may never sleep at night quite right again?

The alliances that formed over this Patriot Act infrastructure are indeed troubling.

- Who did Cheney spend his time recently attacking on the news program? Was it Barack? - How about Chris Cristie Friday, who did he go after? Barry? Pelosi?- Finally Peter King yesterday, who was his venom directed towards? Surely it was Obama right?

They are basically providing cover for the President, and I am sure when the next President is Hillary or Jeb, the Prism will be safe. Once Paul is eliminated from contention they can trot out the "Obama is a communist usurper" stuff once again.

For now we can put that stuff away until we make sure we have two safe candidates in 2016.